Before we address the latest news on this front, I'm not convinced that this will be any great boon for the providers: after all, if they pay for low-end plans, where are their patients going to come up with the $4,600 and up "cost-sharing" funds? Or are they going to pop for Gold or Platinum plans, with lower out-of-pocket risk but substantially higher premiums?

Here's a question: if you can't afford even subsidized insurance, how are you paying those legal fees?

Meanwhile, the hospitals seem intent on "fulfilling the law's mission of extending coverage to millions of Americans, said Melinda Hatton, the American Hospital Association's general counsel." Yes, I can just feel the warm fuzzies. Such altruism is so rare these days.

On the other hand, critics argue that it's "a conflict of interest for hospitals and drug companies to pay patients' premiums and cost-sharing for the sole purpose of increasing utilization of their services and products." That comes from AHIP's Karen Ignagni.

Um Karen? Here's some free advice about glass houses and stones: don't. Remember, you guys were all in on the ObamaTax before you flip-flopped (unconvincingly, I might add). So lecturing another industry about conflicts of interest, when yours stood to make a great deal by forcing people to buy your product, is more than a bit self-serving.

And of course, Ms Shecantbeserious would like to have it both ways: in October, she told a Congresscritter that "she didn't consider plans sold through the insurance exchanges to be federal health-care programs, and so weren't subject to rules that prevent health providers from giving subsidies or rebates to enrollees."

But the next week, one of her minions said that HHS "would "discourage" hospitals and other commercial entities from paying premiums. It asked insurers to reject such payments and warned that it would take further action if necessary."

One can only imagine how the carriers were quaking in their boots at the implied threat.

As for me, well, I think that it's a great example of unintended consequences, and puts the lie to "Affordable Care Act."